Nie Haiyan, Song Yanling, Zeng Zhigao, Zhang Qiong
Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Integr Zool. 2011 Mar;6(1):63-70. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-4877.2010.00232.x.
Understanding life history patterns, individual fitness and population fitness can assist with conservation of endangered species. Field data on life history traits (i.e. age specific fecundity, age specific mortality, age at first reproduction, litter size and adult life expectancy) were collected from 121 Hainan Eld's deer (Cervus eldi hainanus Thomas, 1918), an in situ herd of an endemic, rare and endangered cervid inhabiting Bangxi Natural Reserve of Hainan Island, from 1990 to 2002. First, we constructed a dynamic life table to analyze the life history pattern of the population, which showed that the difference between the average lifespan of males and females was not significant (P > 0.05), and that the difference between the average lifespan of the whole Hainan Eld's deer population and that of other Eld's deer populations living in South Asia (P > 0.05), North America (P > 0.05) and Europe (P > 0.05) was not significant. Second, we used individual reproductive success or number of offspring of a male over its lifetime to estimate male individual fitness. Statistic analysis showed that male individual fitness was not significantly correlated with total antler velvet mass. Third, we used the population intrinsic rate of increase to measure population fitness, and population fitness of Hainan Eld's deer was compared with similar indexes of 5 other cervid species. Hainan Eld's deer population fitness index was 0.012, the second lowest value relative to other cervids. Results indicated that this rare species is still endangered and is in need of additional protection.
了解生活史模式、个体适合度和种群适合度有助于濒危物种的保护。1990年至2002年期间，我们从栖息于海南岛邦溪自然保护区的121只海南坡鹿（Cervus eldi hainanus Thomas，1918）——一种地方性、珍稀濒危的鹿科动物的原地种群中，收集了有关生活史特征（即特定年龄的繁殖力、特定年龄的死亡率、首次繁殖年龄、产仔数和成年寿命）的野外数据。首先，我们构建了一个动态生命表来分析该种群的生活史模式，结果表明雄性和雌性的平均寿命差异不显著（P>0.05），并且海南坡鹿整个种群的平均寿命与生活在南亚（P>0.05）、北美（P>0.05）和欧洲（P>0.05）的其他坡鹿种群的平均寿命差异也不显著。其次，我们用雄性一生的个体繁殖成功率或后代数量来估计雄性个体适合度。统计分析表明，雄性个体适合度与鹿茸总重量没有显著相关性。第三，我们用种群内禀增长率来衡量种群适合度，并将海南坡鹿的种群适合度与其他5种鹿科动物的类似指标进行了比较。海南坡鹿的种群适合度指数为0.012，相对于其他鹿科动物是第二低的值。结果表明，这种珍稀物种仍然濒危，需要更多的保护。
